宗鏡錄 18.15
English (machine translation) 18.15
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18.15
Answer: Self and other are non-dual. It is simply that the Tathāgata possesses the great compassion of identical substance, and sentient beings possess the power of perfuming. Striking the wisdom mirror of identical substance, in accord with this mind [of theirs], they responsively perceive the physical marks and characteristics. The image in the mirror, though not separate from the mirror, is nevertheless not identical with the mirror. Conforming to the reflection of the fine or the ugly, those who evoke it are varied in a thousand ways, and the forms are likewise of ten thousand kinds. In some cases, the capacity and stage are deep and thick, and the Buddha's body is ten million yojanas tall, his lifespan immeasurable asaṃkhyeya kalpas, with Buddha-lands [as numerous as] the dust motes of worlds [as numerous as] the sands of the Ganges serving as his pure and wondrous realm, expounding immeasurable, boundless, ineffable and ineffable Dharma gates. In other cases, when the retribution of humans and devas is distinct, he manifests the eight aspects [of enlightenment], his benefits for a single lifetime not exceeding a few hundred years, arising nebulously like clouds in the sky or the moon in water. These all arise from the single thought-moment of the mind of the one who evokes them, thinking that the Buddha's physical body has come to respond. The Buddha truly has neither the toil of coming and going, nor the affliction of having form, nor any Dharma that can be expounded, nor any capacity to be saved. It is merely that sentient beings, through the mental ideation of their wholesome conditions, think that the Buddha has come in response to preach the Dharma for them; in reality, it is sentient beings manifesting this form upon their own minds.
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- 宗鏡錄 — Classical Chinese